Slavyanka, Azerbaijan

Infobox Settlement
name =Slavyanka
settlement_type=Municipality
native_name =
pushpin_

pushpin_mapsize =300
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = flag|Azerbaijan
subdivision_type1 = Rayon
subdivision_name1 =Gadabay
leader_title =
leader_name =
established_title =
established_date =
area_total_km2 =
area_footnotes =
population_as_of =
population_total =3705
population_footnotes = [TCSC|66]
population_density_km2 =
timezone =AZT
utc_offset = +4
timezone_DST =AZT
utc_offset_DST = +5
latd=40 |latm=39 |lats=27 |latNS=N
longd=45|longm=48 |longs=38 |longEW=E
elevation_m =
area_code =
website =

Slavyanka ( _ru. Славянка) is a village and the most populous municipality, except for the capital Gədəbəy, in the Gadabay Rayon of Azerbaijan. It has a population of 3,705. The municipality consists of the villages of Slavyanka and Maarif. [AJmuni]

History

Along with a number of other villages in northwestern Azerbaijan, Slavyanka was settled in 1844 by the Doukhobors, members of a Pacifist dissenter Christian group resettled to Transcaucasia by Nicholas I from the Molochna River settlements in today's Zaporizhia Oblast of the Ukraine. The village is said to have been named after the town of Slavyansk (in today's Donetsk Oblast), where many of the ancestors of the Molochna Doukhobors had originated. [http://www.doukhobor.org/pn-details.html?rec=746 Slavyanka Village] (Doukhobor Genealoge Website)] J. Kalmakoff, [http://www.doukhobor.org/Maps.htm Doukhobor Historical Maps] , with maps of settlements [http://www.doukhobor.org/Azerbaijan.gifin Azerbaijan] and [http://www.doukhobor.org/Georgia.gifGeorgia] (Doukhobor Genealogy Website) ] Slavyanka was the birthplace of the Doukhobor leader Peter Vasilevich Verigin, who was born there on June 29, 1859. [http://www.erta-tcrg.org/groupes/doukhoborshisto.htm Brève histoire des Doukhobors au Canada] fr icon]

The Russian painter Vasili Vasilyevich Vereshchagin visited Slavyanka in 1863. The village at the time had 205 houses with around 600 male residents (and, presumably, a similar number of females). According to Vereshchagin, the Doukhobors "lived an honest, reasonable, and prosperous life", but, under the pressure of the struggle for existence in the borderlands, had become less strict in their practices, many taking up smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol. [ [http://www.doukhobor.org/Vereshchagin.htm The Dukhobortsy, 1863] . From: "Vassili Verestchagin: Painter-Soldier-Traveller, Autobiographical Sketches". Translated by F.H. Peters. London: Bentley, 1887. (The spelling in the 1887 edition was "Duchobortzis", [http://books.google.com/books?id=J9I2AAAAMAAJ] )]

During the confrontation with the Czarist government in the mid-1890s over the conscription and oath of allegiance, in June 1895 Slavyanka became the site of the area's Doukhobors destroying their weapons in the well-known "Burning of the Arms" event. The government responded by exiling a large number of the local Doukhobors elsewhere in Russian Empire; some died of starvation, exposure, and diseases in the process. In 1899, many survivors left for Saskatchewan, Canada.

Many of the Doukhobors that remained in Elisabethpol Governorate (today's western Azerbaijan) joined other dissenting Christian groups, such as Molokans or Baptists. Others moved in the 1920s to Ukraine or Russia, where they named villages in Zaporizhia Oblast [ [http://www.doukhobor.org/pn-details.html?rec=766] (Doukhobor Genealogy Website) ] and Rostov Oblast [ [http://www.doukhobor.org/pn-details.html?rec=274] (Doukhobor Genealogy Website) ] after their old home in Azerbaijan.

During the Soviet period, the peasants of the village were "collectivized" into a "kolkhoz" named "Put' Ilyicha" ( _ru. Путь Ильича, 'Lenin's Way').

Slavyanka's name carried to Canada

The Doukhobors who emigrated to Canada named two of their new short-lived villages after the Caucasian Slavyanka. One Slavyanka was located near Blaine Lake, Saskatchewan in the so-called "Saskatchewan Doukhobor Colony"; it was founded in 1901 and abandoned in 1911. [ [http://www.doukhobor.org/pn-details.html?rec=212] (Doukhobor Genealogy Website) ] The other, near Kamsack, Saskatchewan in the so-called "South Doukhobor Colony", was established in 1899; in 1905, its residents mostly moved to two other villages, and this Slavyanka was soon abandoned. [ [http://www.doukhobor.org/pn-details.html?rec=148] (Doukhobor Genealogy Website) ]

Present day

Despite significant emigration, Slavyanka still maintains ethnically Russian (Molokan) population, [ [http://www.day.az/news/politics/62773.html Ильхам Алиев совершил визит в Кедабекский и Шамкирский районы] ru icon] [ [http://mirtv.ru/content/view/6427/42/ МТРК «Мир» - Жителям русских сел Славянка, Новосаратовка и Ивановка в Азербайджане местные власти преподнесли сюр ] ]

References

*GEOnet Names Server